Great Throughts Treasury

"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt." - Bergen Baldwin Evans

"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think." - Bergen Baldwin Evans

"Freedom means chance; you are free, because there is no reason which will account for your particular acts, because no one in the world, not even yourself, can possibly say what you will, or will not, do next. You are ‘accountable’, in short, because you are a wholly ‘unaccountable’ creature." - Bernard Bosanquet

"Life is so mysterious. People are in misery, and they don’t know how to get out, get help or free themselves. Life is total freedom, but we’re trapped in our own civilization, culture, religion, teachings. We’re equipped with fear, ignorance, unhappiness. Desire is the big evil, the big temptation. Many people carry on in life without knowing this. We do so much for our bodies but not for our souls. Pay attention to yourself, monitor your thinking and capture the villains within. Know what it is in you that would make people suffer more, make people suffer less. Know this and you know how to use your thinking and abilities to bring peace. Certain people have certain duties, a talent. The meaning of life is to see this mission, fulfill it and make the maximum use of your life and your benefit and mankind’s." - Bernie S. Siegel

"Everything on earth gives cause for fear, and the only freedom from fear is to be found in the renunciation of all desire." - Bhartrihari NULL

"Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace." - Carl Sandburg

"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings... Money breeds money, money rules the world." - Carl Sandburg

"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of all blessings." - Carl Sandburg

"This body is mortal, forever in the clutch of death. But within it resides the Self, immortal, and without form. This Self, when associated in consciousness with the body, is subject to pleasure and pain; and so long as this association continues, no man can find freedom from pains and pleasures. But when the association comes to an end, there is an end also of pain and pleasure. Rising above physical consciousness, knowing the Self as distinct from the sense-organs and the mind., knowing Him in his true light, one rejoices and one is free." - Chandogya Upanishad

"Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cue, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release; the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure; the comforter of him whom time cannot console." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The wisest man may be wiser today than he was yesterday, and tomorrow than he is today. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone." - Charles Caleb Colton

"From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery. Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue. The animals had rights - the right of man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, and the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness - and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing. This concept of life and its relations was humanizing, and gave to the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. The Lakota could despise no creature, for all were of one blood, made by the same hand, and filled with the essence of the Great Mystery. In spirit, the Lakota were humble and meek. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” - this was true for the Lakota, and from the earth they inherited secrets long since forgotten. Their religion was sane, natural, and human." -

"Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has any one who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth, any cause to wonder that he does not hear it." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL

"When perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed." - Tacitus, fully Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus NULL

"Your ‘personal’ life cannot have a lasting intrinsic meaning. It can acquire a contingent meaning, but only by being fitted into and subordinated to something which ‘lasts’ and has a meaning in itself. Is this something what we attempt to identify when we speak of ‘Life’? Can your life have a meaning as a tiny fragment of life? Does Life exist? Seek and you shall find, experience Life as reality. Has Life a ‘meaning’? Experience Life as reality and the question becomes meaningless. Seek - ? Seek by daring to take the leap into unconditional obedience. Dare this when you are challenged, for only by the light of a challenge will you be able to see the cross-roads and, in full awareness of your choice, turn your back upon your personal life - with no right ever to look back. You will find that ‘in the pattern’ you are liberated from the need to live ‘with the herd’. You will find that, thus subordinated, your life will receive from Life all its meaning, irrespective of the conditions given you for its realization. You will find that the freedom of the continual farewell, the hourly self-surrender, gives to your experience of reality the purity and clarity which signify - seal-realization. You will find that obedience requires an act of will which must continually be re-iterated, and that you will fail, if anything in your personal life is allowed to slip back into the center." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"The responsibility for our mistakes is ours, but not the credit for our achievements. Man’s freedom is a freedom to betray God. God may love us - yes - but our response is voluntary." - Dag Hammarskjöld

"Discipline is the surest means to greater freedom and independence; it provides the focus to achieve the skill level and depth of knowledge that translates into more options in life... The Law of Discipline points to a paradox. While freedom is our transcendent birthright, it must be earned in this world; discipline remains the key to freedom and independence." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"Freedom and responsibility go together, as do independence and discipline." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"Modern culture is defined by this extraordinary freedom to ransack the world storehouse and to engorge any and every style it comes upon. Such freedom comes from the fact that the axial principle of modern culture is the expression and remaking of the “self” in order to achieve self-realization and self-fulfillment. And in its search, there is a denial of any limits or boundaries to experience. It is a reaching out for all experience; nothing is forbidden, all is to be explored." - Daniel Bell

"The greatest gift that God in His bounty made... was the freedom of the will, with which the intelligent creatures were and are endowed." - Dante, full name Durante degli Alighieri, aka Dante Alighieri NULL

"The test of democracy is freedom of criticism." - David Ben-Gurion, born David Grün

"Men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other." - David Riesman

"The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other." - David Riesman

"Man is here to experience the unity of his own consciousness, to rise from suffering to perfection, and in the triumph of enlightenment to reclaim the earth as a heaven designed from him. Beneath the mask of suffering, the meaning of life is limitless freedom and the conquest of death." - Deepak Chopra

"Anything and everything in existence can be mastered when all effort is relaxed and the mind is absorbed in the infinite unbounded nature of consciousness. And then we are no longer upset by the play of opposites. And life is lived in freedom and joy." - Deepak Chopra

"When you rob a person of his pain and suffering, you rob him of his life, his freedom, his independence; you keep him dependent on you; This is a trap for therapists and healers and Zen teachers, too." - Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi

"Death is the supreme festival on the road to freedom." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"[During dire days under the Nazis] Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he’s called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Human dignity, economic freedom, individual responsibility, these are the characteristics that distinguish democracy from all other forms devised by man." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"The pact of Munich was a more fell blow to humanity than the atom bomb at Hiroshima. Suffocation of human freedom among a once free people, however quietly and peacefully accomplished, is more far-reaching in its implications and its effects on their future than the destruction of their homes, industrial centers and transportation facilities. Out of rubble heaps, willing hands can rebuild a better city; but out of freedom lost can stem only generations of hate and bitter struggle and brutal oppression." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade." - Edward Gibbon

"Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom - for himself." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it... Freedom is the supreme good - freedom from self-imposed limitation." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"Freedom and slavery! the one is the name of virtue, and the other of vice, and both are acts of the will." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

"Freedom is obtained not by the enjoyment of what is desired but by controlling desire itself." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

"Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency." - Epicurus NULL

"You must be the slave of philosophy, if you would enjoy real freedom." - Epicurus NULL

"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do." - Eric Hoffer

"There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail." - Eric Hoffer

"To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition." - Eric Hoffer

"Freedom of judgment can be attained only when we learn to estimate an individual according to his own ability and character." - Ernst P. Boas

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive." - Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.

"Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"In the truest sense freedom cannot be bestowed, it must be achieved." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions - bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one race against another seeks to enslave all races. Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first freedom is speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world-terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world-terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

"We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in their own way everywhere in the world. The third freedom is from want everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear everywhere in the world." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR